The Left-Handed Woman

The Left-Handed Woman is novella by Peter Handke, which was to be turned into a feature film in 1997, starring Lisa Zane. The script was written by Matt Amato and Mark Eitzel wrote the soundtrack. Eitzel performed his soundtrack to the film on August 30, 1997 at Sunset Stage in Hollywood, California. It is the only timed the full score was performed. Ann Magnuson shared vocal duties with Eitzel for the performance.[1] The film was never completed.

Of the film Eitzel said, "I've written twelve songs for this film; a friend of mine wrote an adaptation of the Peter Handke book The Left-Handed Woman and it's going to be a black and white art film and a musical; but it's not going to be one of those happy, uplifting musicals but one that's really dark. It's about a woman who leaves her abusive husband and tries to find her own identity. It's a good plot. So in January we're going to record all twelve songs and see how they sound and then try to get money to make the movie."[2]

Amato sought out Eitzel to be the film's composer, “and it turned out he’d read all of Peter Handke’s plays,” Amato said.[3]

After AMC signed with Warner Bros., the band’s manager proposed that Amato write a treatment for a documentary about the band. “A treatment’s only supposed to be three to five pages, tops,” he says. “I wrote a 15-page treatment and sent it through a fax machine. Warner Bros. calls me immediately. I go over there, and there’s a check for $30,000 waiting for me.” He shot the film “like an artifact from the Beat era” in black and white. They loved it. “They said I made $30,000 look like $100,000.”[4]